Introduction to Openness

How firmly committed are you to the ideas and beliefs that govern your thinking and guide your behavior? Some people trust their current ideas and beliefs the way a climber trusts the mountain; whichever way they move, whether the climb is on a familiar trail or over new ground, there is something solid beneath them, something they count on. For others, new ideas, new solutions to old problems, new beliefs that replace tired convictions are like welcome wind in their sails. They can hardly wait to tack in a new direction and ride a new idea through uncharted waters. If it's new, it's interesting, and they're ready to explore. The following paragraphs describe your responses to new ways of thinking and believing. How do you handle new information? Are you more like the climber on a familiar mountain or a sailor with a tiller in hand and a fresh breeze to propel you? How you integrate and process new information about the world and about others is a core aspect of your personality.

On the Openness Dimension you are:

VERY CURIOUS

Words that describe you:

Imaginative Creative Intellectual Adventurous Unconventional Artistic Progressive Daring Inspired

A General Description of How You Approach New Information and Experiences

You are a very creative and imaginative person who is especially open to new ideas or new ways of thinking about old problems. You love to approach a conventional idea or a traditional way of doing things by walking around to the other side and explore it from a novel perspective. What's new is what interests you. Like an artist looking for a new way to see, you focus your imagination on envisioning ideas, events or problems in completely original ways. You are intellectually progressive, which means you like to think and feel your way into unexplored landscapes where you let your sense of intellectual adventure romp freely. Because you are so curious you can also be very teachable. You learn from personal and interpersonal experiences as well as from classrooms and textbooks. You crave new information, and toss and turn it in your vivid imagination. When you come across an idea from someone else or a thought in your own head that is particularly provocative or original, you light up. With wit and wisdom, Dr. Seuss describes you like this: "Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!"

Negative Reactions Others May Have Toward Your Style of Thinking

Not everyone will be thrilled by your adventurous mind. Many people are content with the ideas that have served them and their culture well, and with visions they've grown accustomed to of what is and is not true. They're not lit up at the prospect of moving out of their comfort zone. Others are afraid of new ways of thinking and creative ways of solving problems because they are somewhat fragile in the sense that they have trouble maintaining serenity in their current worlds and don't want someone, like you, for instance, pushing out the edges of their intellectual and cultural cosmos. So don't be surprised if your unconventional ideas sometimes get you criticized, or if some people walk away from the explorations of new territories of the mind that you find so exhilarating.

Positive Responses Others May Have Toward You

Despite some negative responses to your style of thinking, many people will find your progressive thoughts and vivid imagination quite attractive. Some will find your openness to new ways of thinking and your willingness to explore what others shy away from a very compelling quality. Other creative souls will find in you a companion on the journey into the unknown, and will welcome the camaraderie. Conversations with them will be lively and innovative and will ignite your imagination, and theirs. Even some who are less curious than you will be impressed by your courage to think and believe what is for them unimaginable, and by your willingness to go on adventures of the mind that they would find dangerous or daunting. For these people you might become a mentor into the wilder side of thinking and believing, and nudge them toward the creative and progressive ideas that you find so interesting.

Openness: Information Processor Introduction

We're reminded regularly that we live in "the information age". With streams of email and phone messages and the vast sea of data on the internet it seems sometimes that we might drown in "TMI", or "too much information." How well do you do at taking all of this information in, making sense of it and using it wisely? This increased flow of information is also happening in our personal lives. If we talk honestly and listen carefully with our friends and our partners, there's a lot of stuff to process: everyone we know wants us to listen to and understand their different opinions and beliefs and each of us brings our unique family history and our own records of personal successes and failures that make up the stories we want to tell to those we care about. The surge of feelings that result come at times like water from a fire hydrant. Again, how well do you do at taking all this in, making sense of it and using it wisely? Put briefly, how effective are you as an Information Processor?

Information Processor: Your Personalized Description

You are very effective at processing information. This must mean that at least these two things are true of you: you love the rush of all this data, the flow of information coming at you day by day, and you have confidence in your ability to take it all in, sort it out and use it wisely. Because you love the rush and have the confidence, you are unafraid of the vast flow of information. It may surprise you to know that not everyone faces this onslaught with the pleasure you find in it. Some people are taken aback at the thought of another morning with dozens of emails, a Blackberry humming, instructions to submit a new proposal by noon, and a phone that seems to have no silent moment. But what they avoid you embrace, curious to find the pieces that fill out the current puzzle you are solving with the data rushing through your high-speed processor of a brain. In the right job or the right relationship this ability will be a great asset. Your colleagues, your closest friends and your partner will appreciate that you take in what they tell you; you are someone who not only pays attention you remember what you have been told. And because you catch on quickly and analyze clearly, your responses to them will usually be on target in terms of what the information means and how it can be best used. Two things to watch out for. First, don't expect your colleagues and friends to process as much information as quickly as you do. You are so exceptional in this area that you won't meet many people who are your match. So cut them some slack. Should you fail to do this you'll have expectations of them they cannot meet and this will lead to frustration for them as well as for you. They'll think you're either arrogant or impatient or both, and you'll consider them either slow-thinking or lazy when in fact they are closer to the norm than you just not in your exceptional category in this skill. Second, if you live and work in a structure where you have to pass things to someone else - a work colleague or your children or a friend you're collaborating with - be careful not to flood them with more than they can handle. Remember, you are able to take the rush of information and process it quickly while they are can handle less and will take more time. Don't drown them with what you pass on. On the whole, however, this quality is a real strength for you, so continue to develop ways to use it wisely on your own behalf and on behalf of those you work and live with. If you do this it will be an asset for everyone.

Openness: Inquisitive Introduction

People who raise children talk about a period in early childhood when every bit of new information is met with the question, "Why?" "You need to eat your carrots." "Why, mommy?" Or, "Why is the sky blue?" Or, "Why did Grandpa die?" Many of the questions never do get answered, but most children grow out of their incessant curiosity and find their own answers, however reliable, to the simplest and the most profound questions. Most children. But some never lose this curiosity. Into adulthood they are addictively inquisitive. "When a fly lands on the ceiling does it come in flying upside down, or does it do a quick flip-turn just before landing?" Most of us would say, "Who cares?", but for the truly curious such questions taunt them and haunt them. How about you? The following paragraphs describe the extent to which you are or are not inquisitive.

Inquisitive: Your Personalised Description

You are the inquisitive child who never stopped asking "Why?" Well into adulthood you still have an insatiable curiosity about the way the world works and why people behave in certain ways and not in others. Where most people would ask a question, get an answer and be satisfied, you press on. "Why do men and women deal differently with problems between them?" "Men are problem solvers and want to find a solution, while women are more interested in relating so they want to talk things through." Enough for some people. Ah, but you want to know, "Is this a difference in their brain structure, or is this something learned through cultural influences?" Probably some of each. Enough then, right? Not so fast. "But why don't cultures just alter the way we nurture women and men and try to resolve this difference?" And on and on and on. Why? Why? Why? Your curiosity keeps you stimulated, keeps you thinking and exploring and growing. You're always seeking out new facts, or new interpretations of known facts, or new comparisons of various interpretations. . . . .well, you get the point. You just keep pushing out the edges of the envelope, hungering for more information, more understanding. All of this makes you a very interesting person. You are lit up with your own curiosity; your mind is lively, your imagination always switched on, and you consistently have new insights that captivate you. Most of the time, your friends and colleagues are fascinated with what you bring to the conversation. Like few in the group, you have a way of taking conversations to a higher level by asking - and sometimes answering - questions no one else is dealing with and pushing everyone forward toward new knowledge. In your work environment your inquisitiveness requires the entire team to think outside the box, to be restless with what is now routine and willing to explore another way to make the product or offer the service. Among your friends and with your partner you are the one who gets everyone to consider a different approach to recurring problems or a different way to understand why you love one another and what it means to make commitments for the long run. But sometimes enough is enough. You exhaust the curiosity of others even as you're moving on to the thirteenth level of Why. They're ready to settle in to some boring conversation about ordinary stuff because their brains are worn out by your questions. "Give it a rest" is what they think, whether they say it or not. So you've got to be discreet with your inquisitiveness. On your own, have at it as long as you wish. But in the company of others learn when you've gone far enough and need to back off. Your curiosity is one of your great gifts to your work colleagues, your friends and even your partner and you don't want to spoil the gift by wearing out its welcome.

Openness: Perceptiveness Introduction

How well do you see? Not with your eyes but with your instincts. Do you read people like an open book or is it easy to slide something past you as if your inner vision blinked? Some of us misread other people's intentions while others of us get it right away; some of us consistently misjudge situations while others of us seem to know what's happening even if it isn't obvious. How well do you see? The following paragraphs describe your Perceptiveness.

Perceptiveness: Your Personalised Description

When you have your mind's eye open and your ears attuned, you don't miss much. You see what's going on around you, not just the obvious but also the subtleties of peoples' behavior and intentions. You hear what's being said by your friends and your work colleagues and even catch those nuances that many other people miss. When you are looking and listening carefully you know well how other people are reacting to you, and why, and you read them like pages of an open book. But for some reason or reasons there are moments or circumstances when you just don't get it. Like the monkeys with their hands covering their eyes and pressed over their ears, there are occasions when you See No Evil and Hear No Evil nor much else of what is going on around you. It's as if you are momentarily struck blind and deaf to the obvious and the nuanced and you wind up the fool you don't ever want to be. What happens to you in these moments? Maybe you just stop paying attention. You are distracted by something that seems more important - a concern you're pondering or a fantasy you're enjoying or some situation at work or at home that you can't take your mind's eye off of. Perhaps you think the situation or the person in front of you isn't that important; they don't matter that much to you and they cannot possibly hurt you. Then suddenly you've slipped on a banana peel and you don't know why. Look, you're smart enough not to get caught off guard like this. There is ample evidence from all the times you see and hear so well that you don't need to slip into these moments of naivete or density that get you into trouble. Maybe you could use your friends or your partner to nudge you when your mind wanders off; and maybe you can learn some mental disciplines that will help you keep your mind on what's right in front of you. Most of the time you're nobody's fool; you'd be wiser still to increase that time and minimize those awkward moments when you take a mental or emotional pratfall.

Introduction to Emotional Stability

We're born with the capacity to feel deeply, so it's as natural as breathing to experience a range of emotions. Fear and joy and sadness, anger and shame and disgust lie somewhere within each of us. Ah, but to what extent do we control these emotions, and to what extent do they control us? How you answer this question of how your emotions play out in your life has a great deal to do with your levels of personal satisfaction and with the character of your relationships with others. Do you manage your emotions well, keeping them in check with your thinking and your willpower, or are you someone who lets emotions have their way, giving in to the wild dance of feelings? The following paragraphs describe your emotional range in terms of being a person who is emotionally steady or someone who is responsive to whatever feelings swell up in you.

On Emotional Stability you are:

RESPONSIVE

Words that describe you:

Open Accessible Too Sensitive Reachable Candid Unguarded

A General Description of Your Reactivity

You are an emotional person. In some ways, we are all emotional; we feel joy, anger, sadness and fear; some of us more powerfully than others - and you more powerfully than most. Your emotions are closer to the surface, and your feelings more obvious to you than is the case with most people. You've got your life in a good place, your dominant mood is upbeat, and unless life has been particularly trying for you, you greatly enjoy the richness and intensity of life that being so open with your emotions brings you. Sure there are times when your feelings come very close to the surface, and life becomes more complicated. At these times you may grow self-conscious, or feel a bit anxious. But all in all, you much prefer being open with your emotions, breathing in all that life offers, than shutting down any part of your emotional experience. Granted, there may be times when these emotions are hard but you realize that is part of life. And more often than not you feel enriched by your emotions, by your ability to be open to all that life brings you. You know that even when you have those times that get you down, there will be even more times when you see life in ways that others just can't.

Negative Reactions Others May Have Toward You

Undoubtedly you have met some people who get uncomfortable being around you because your feelings are so close to the surface. They may keep a bit of distance, especially around any subject that might trigger an emotional topic they are uncomfortable with. Over time, they might even stay away from you more and more. You will find you have decisions to make; do you temper your style for their comfort or do you hope they will find ways to become more comfortable with emotional expressions? Given the richness that seems to stem from your emotional life the most meaningful response is probably very apparent to you.

Positive Responses Others May Have Toward You

You are a cherished companion for those friends who can handle emotions well. They will appreciate the candor with which you express even difficult feelings like anger and fear. Your openness will make intimate conversations even more intimate, and make the connections between you as friends deeper and stronger. Some people who have trouble expressing their feelings might find in you a good example of how to be more vulnerable and more open. Your willingness and ability to share your emotions could encourage them to share theirs, and invite them into ways of being friends that will help enrich their lives.

Emotional Stability: Anger Management Introduction

Anger is as natural as love is, as much a part of what it means to be human as sadness or fear or joy. But for most people anger is a more troubling - perhaps the most troubling - of our emotions. Some people refuse to express anger directly; they hold it in, like holding their breath, until the moment passes and the anger slips out like a subtle sigh. Other people explode with the frequency of popcorn, littering their lives with necessary and unnecessary conflict. What about you? You get angry of course; everyone does. But how do you manage those angry moments? The following paragraphs describe your ability to manage your anger.

Anger Management: Your Personalised Description

You may have a friend like Katie KaBoom or Bob the Bomb-Thrower, people who just can't manage their way through a disagreement without blowing up emotionally and sometimes blowing up a friendship. Maybe you grew up in a family or with a friend like this. Because they cannot control their anger their anger controls them; at times it seems that anger controls their lives, defining who will or will not be their friend or their partner, who will or will not remain their colleague at work, who will or will not put up with one more meal or one more evening littered with the debris of their explosive anger. You've made the decision over and again: no matter how upset you get - and you do get upset - you will not revert to this kind of behavior. You've seen the damage, sometimes been part of it yourself perhaps, and you want no more of it. You know you're capable of angry expression; you can feel the rumble when someone crosses you, the heat rising when a discussion of differences slides into an argument. Maybe on occasion you've let your defenses down, shouted out "To hell with you' just like Katie or Bob would do, and then felt terrible in the aftermath. So you've learned: keep it under control so that your anger doesn't control you. That's a good decision every time you make it, and a good strategy for giving relationships a better chance to succeed. A person may win an argument, but no relationship does; if there's a winner and a loser in an argument, the relationship loses. With someone you care about it's better to walk away when the temperature climbs than to let things come to a boil. And with someone who doesn't matter, why waste your emotional energy - not to mention your character - for something of so little value? So even if your friends or your partner try to provoke you into giving in to the anger both you and they know is in you, resist. Wait out the rise in temperature; then you will be able to talk out whatever the problem is and perhaps come to some mutual resolution, something that never - really, never! - happens in an argument.

Emotional Stability: Emotional Strength Introduction

Over twenty years ago Scott Peck began his best-selling book The Road Less Traveled with this profound statement of the obvious: "Life is difficult". Two decades of learning later, we want to say, "Duh!! Of course it is". Life comes at us at too fast a pace, just to get by we need to take on more than we can handle, stress outweighs pleasure by a ton - we know all these things because this is the river we swim in, the life we both choose and cannot avoid. And more often than we'd like, it's difficult to make such a life work. So how do we handle the pressure? Do we manage the stress or does it control us? Are we able to cope beyond simple survival and actually experience our lives as happy and hopeful? Or do we collapse under the weight of it all, panic at the thought of what tomorrow morning brings, and look for some way out of what has become more than we can handle? The following paragraphs describe your emotional strength, which is your ability or lack of ability to deal with the fact that life is difficult.

Emotional Strength: Your Personalised Description

Most of the time you manage to make it through even the most difficult situations. You've survived the break-up of relationships or the loss of a friend or battles in your family or conflicts at work. You somehow manage to gather your inner resources, keep yourself from panicking, and find your way through. Maybe on occasion you collapse; you crawl under the covers for three days, turn the electric blanket up to ten, suck your thumb and sleep until the panic subsides. But not very often. Usually you're up and at it and head straight for the problem, using your brains and your character and your imagination and getting control of your life again. A word about those times when you lose control. Have you ever tried to figure out what it is about those rare times when you don't do so well? Maybe there's a pattern; maybe they involve a certain kind of person, or a situation that calls for a response you're not very good at - you need to fight for your rights and you don't like to fight, or it's something in your family and your family never allows you to assert yourself. Something like that. It's worth figuring out, if you can, which situations give you the most trouble and how you might cope with them more effectively. It's also worth knowing where your strength comes from. Maybe you got it from a family that cherished you and challenged you and taught you what you were capable of, or maybe you struggled early on and learned to make your way with ingenuity and imagination until you came to believe in yourself. Now you've had enough experience with surviving, even thriving, to trust that you will make it through most situations. Here's another thing you've probably already learned. You need friends, or at least one friend, who is very much like you, not necessarily in their opinions or beliefs or the clothes they wear but in their ability to make it through difficult times. Someone you can count on to understand what's happening when the bottom drops out for you, and whom you can lean on as you make your way up out of the ditch. It is a sign of your strength, not your weakness, that you cultivate a friendship with just such a person so that, when you have to, each of you has the other to rely upon. A word of warning. Some people - maybe some of your friends, or even your partner - are always looking for someone to pick up part of their load in life, either because they cannot carry it or they're just not willing to exert the effort it would take. Be careful. You're strong but you're not invincible, something you know from those rare occasions when you wind up curled up under the blanket looking out at the world. You do neither yourself nor your friends a favor by taking on more than you can or should handle. So use your great strength wisely, and both you and those around you will continue to benefit from it.

Emotional Stability: Ease with Others Introduction

Most of us have at least one or two friends or family members we know we can trust; many of us have a whole crowd of people we think of as reliable. But some people just aren't sure; they don't know if it's foolish to trust even the person they feel closest too. After all, they've been let down before and what's to keep it from happening again, even from someone close at hand? Many of us walk out the door into the world believing that there is fun and goodness and even love to find out there; we embrace the opportunity to explore new places with new or familiar friends. But some people just aren't sure; the world is a dangerous place, and whatever fun or goodness or love there is out there is compromised by the danger of some people and the random acts of violence that no one is safe from. What about you? Do you leave your home every day with a buoyant expectation that you'll find pleasure and kindness out there, or do you anticipate the worst and guard against it with prudence and caution and a very observant eye? The following paragraphs describe ways in which you view the world and the people in it as you venture forth.

Ease with Others: Your Personalised Description

Here's one of the most striking things about you: You are not afraid. Even with headlines about war and mayhem and conniving and sinister people, you approach the world to embrace it, not to run from it. You talk with strangers, you wade into the crowd in a new social situation as if you expect to meet your next best friend, and where other people anticipate danger in what may be lurking around the corner you expect to come across a unicorn or a marching band led by a guru who will lead you to a mountain from which you'll see things with brand new eyes. You are not afraid. But you may be reckless. Certainly some of your friends and family will see you this way. They read the same headlines and know that danger lurks, and they're afraid that you just aren't prudent enough, cautious enough. Sometimes they may be correct. Your fearlessness may be foolishness when dangers are very real. But even if they're wrong, you and they are going to have to talk; you have to make your way together toward some common ground. You want to embrace life, even if it means taking risks; they want you around for the long haul, even if it means you don't ride the unicorn. Talk it over. Work it out. You're dealing not just with your fear, or lack of fear, but with the fear for you that is part of their love for you. Your sense of security and safety is a rarity. So don't be surprised if a large crowd doesn't gather to follow you if you push the limits with your social involvements. Frankly, many people would rather stay closer to home, to the lives they've come to trust and find comfort in. You are a bit out on the edge for most of them. So get used to going solo. This isn't to say you should stop. Your approach to others is likely a role you cherish. You simply are not afraid, and you like nothing more than launching yourself into the next opportunity and discovering what new person or place or experience will light up the next day of your venturesome life.

Introduction to Conscientiousness

It's a work day, breakfast is over, and you're dressed and ready. So how will you approach the tasks at hand? Some people work best with a clear schedule, a set of priorities and a due date for every step in the process. Others are, shall we say, less regimented. They approach a task with as much imagination as organization, and with a willingness to bend and modify in order to exercise some urge of creativity. How about you? Do you walk in a straight line toward a clear goal, or are you more likely to dance your way down whatever path will get you wherever it is you're headed? The following paragraphs describe ways in which you approach the tasks life brings to you, and to what extent you are focused or flexible in how you choose to proceed.

Your approach toward your obligations is:

FOCUSED AND FLEXIBLE

Words that describe you:

Casual Informal Compliant Reliable Organized Solid Dependable Uncommitted Genuine

A General Description of How You Interact with Others

When you take on a task at work or at home, you are reliable; you get the job done. In an organized way, you define the goal, lay out a plan, figure how long the task will take, and get to work "solid and dependable you". But and this is important you're not a slave to the plan. You're committed to it, but not chained to it; the connection is more casual and informal. You know that sometimes "the best laid plans" fall off the tracks; when this happens, you clean up the train wreck and start over, undeterred. Though not happening often, when plans change, you're okay with it. In fact, sometimes you change the plan. It's too nice of a Saturday to finish organizing the garage. Let's go for a bike ride instead. True, the next rainy Saturday will likely find you back in the garage, but for now the work can wait. What an interesting combination of qualities in you're organized, but casual; solid, but compliant; and dependable, but informal. At home and at work, people know they can rely on you. You take great satisfaction in knowing that people think of you as disciplined and responsible, but you also know that you have something of a free spirit in you, and when this spirit moves you, off you go, following the impulse of the moment. You are rightly proud of your work ethic, but you also enjoy your willingness to lay the tools down, crank up the music and play like a child.

Negative Reactions Others May Have Toward You

Some people live like Marines: duty-bound, disciplined and driven. To these people you might seem uncommitted; where they would never leave work for play or change plans in the middle of their life's forced march, you let the circumstance sway you and move in a different direction, and they don't understand. Others live like kites on a string, attached by thin threads to the solid ground of responsibility and are blown about by every gust of impulse or imagination. To these people you might seem too cowardly, like you'll flirt with your impulses but never give in fully, play on a Saturday but never blow of the entire work-week to "follow your bliss". While these Marines and kite-flyers might look down on you for your combination of focus and flexibility, others might be envious. They can't free themselves from a sense that they're not doing enough, or from the equally frustrating feeling that they're not free enough. And here you are with your accomplishments and your pleasures, getting the job done but also getting your hair blown back as you run with the wind. As far as these people are concerned, you're lucky you've got the best of both of the worlds in which they feel they fail.

Positive Responses Others May Have Toward You

What a great life you have, and a great attitude to boot. You know when to buckle down and push ahead to get the job done, and you do it well. You know when to lay the tools of your trade aside, grab your kite and head for the meadow where you can run with the wind. Many people will see and admire in you this lovely combination of a person who can focus, but who is flexible enough to know when to let the spirit move you in some new and livelier direction. It's a life they aspire to, and they delight in seeing it played out in your life. They may ask your advice and turn you into a mentor of the full and balanced experience. They will want to know how you do it, what the costs are, and if you get frightened that you're not working hard enough or playing often enough. They may make you think about your own life more than you have, so you can share it with those who want to emulate this balance between flexibility and focus. They may be correct lucky you!

Conscientiousness: Efficient Introduction

As you set out into your day, are you efficient in your use of time, or at the end of your day do look back and feel you wasted time? Do you get done those things you set out to do, or at the end of the day is there still a stack of unfinished business? Have you cleaned up yesterday's mess or left as much of a mess at the end of the day as you found at the beginning? In a word, are you or are you not efficient?

Efficient: Your Personalised Description

Okay, so you sometimes run late; still, you're usually on time. And sometimes your desk resembles the aftermath of a small bombing raid; but you get it cleaned up, eventually. Maybe once a month you blow off a meeting or don't return a phone call; so you're not perfect, but you're way better than some. And when you do miss stuff it's seldom the big stuff; it's one or two details, and didn't someone write a book that says, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff"? Don't a few details qualify as "the small stuff"? To turn it around and look from the other direction, you get a lot done and it's usually done very well, and it's almost always done on time. Even if you're not a "neat freak" or a perfectionist about dotting i's and crossing t's, what you produce meets the needs of the task and is intelligible and doesn't need a whole lot of rewriting or redoing. On any reasonable person's efficiency scale, you are at least Pretty Good. You might get uncomfortable if the job you're doing or the person you're working (or - and this could be trouble - living) with requires more attention to detail than you are used to giving. Remember, they're as uncomfortable with you as you are with them, so it's a matter of talking it through, finding some accommodation, at least for the project at hand, and making your way together. If the project is not just a work assignment but a relationship, well, you may need some help with that tango. To live with and love someone whose attention to detail is greater or less than yours is like dancing with a klutz; each of you is going to get your toes stepped on. Somebody needs to teach one of you to dance a bit better. Find a good teacher. Even if you get uncomfortable with some people or they get uncomfortable with you, the important thing is that you are comfortable with yourself. And that's true for you as long as you get enough stuff done with enough attention to detail to make it presentable and with enough attention to the people involved so that no one gets their feelings injured or their expectations disappointed. Most of the time you are pretty content with the way you work and the product you generate. As long as you keep it like that, you'll sleep like a baby even if there's a bit of a mess to wake to tomorrow morning.

Conscientiousness: Leader Introduction

If you were to be in the perfect job where would you fit in the power hierarchy? Are you best suited to be at the front of the company-making tough decisions, pushing things forward and living with the consequences, or would you be better suited to be a worker, someone who has a clear job description, puts in their time and moves on to the next task? We all don't have the Donald Trump instinct, far from it. And thank God for that, no?

Leader: Your Personalised Description

In the game of hide-and-seek, when you're "it" you close your eyes and cover your ears while everyone else in the game scrambles off to find a place you'd never think to look for them. But in the grown-up game of making life work, you're "it" when you're the one whose eyes are most open, whose ears hear most clearly, and whom others trust to help them find their way out of whatever hiding place they've gotten lost in. In the world of your work and home life, the others around you often make you "it" because they know you'll find a way. What they see in you and what you may see in yourself are qualities that make a good leader. When others cannot see or hear to find their way, they point to you as the leader they trust. Who knows how you got this way? Maybe you were put in charge of siblings and cousins when you were young. Maybe you were the one chosen captain, even if you weren't the best athlete on the team. Maybe you were the smartest one in the room when someone had to figure a way through a maze of conflicting opinions. Or maybe it's your temperament: you get impatient with waiting around for someone to point the way and finally just blurt out, "I say we go north" and everyone gets in line behind you. Who knows what made you a leader? But you are one. At least much of the time. But there may be someone else more suited than you to lead in a particular circumstance. They know more about the terrain or have been in similar situations more often or are just better at this particular issue than you are. This has happened before, right? And how do you handle it? If it grates on you to have someone else in charge you could become a problem to others, dead-weight once a decision has been made, because your feelings or your pride are injured. Maybe the next time, even if you're the right person to lead, you'll decline either to punish the group for not choosing you last time or to keep yourself from seeming foolish if that other leader is in the room. For you, one of the tasks of leadership may be to know when you are and when you are not the person to take charge, and not to let pettiness or pride keep you and those around you from your leadership when you're just the right person to take charge. When you are the right person, you know how to take control of the situation, how to define what is and what is not the problem, how to choose a likely solution, and - this may be your best gift of leadership - how to decide the course of action, rally others behind you, and move. You've done it before, and won the trust and admiration of those who follow you. So it's likely they'll choose you again.

Conscientiousness: Planner Introduction

The need for order is one of those peculiar aspects of personality that makes or breaks a seemingly inordinate number of relationships. If you are orderly and have a place for everything few things likely get under your skin more than someone who puts your tools or your office supplies in the wrong place. And if you are the one who truly finds a clean desk to be a sign of a troubled mind you often really do get a bit irked with the person who feels a need to try and reform your disorderly ways. The Planner section will tell you what you probably already know - do you need order to feel comfortable. And while you may know where you already stand on this scale hopefully this will help you plan how to deal with those who differ from you, or perhaps more importantly how to deal with others who are the same as you.

Planner: Your Personalised Description

Around the same time each year you buy yourself a new planner, or sit down in front of a scheduling program and, when you can find an hour of the time between meetings and social events you organize dates that are already committed: monthly meetings of various work and volunteer organizations, the date of your cousin's wedding, tentative vacations plans to ski for a weekend in January and take two weeks in the summer somewhere where it's warm. Then week by week, or sometimes every two weeks, you keep the planner up to date with stuff that comes up at work, dates with friends, a concert you bought tickets for and need to find a friend to take, reminders of your parents' anniversary, various birthdays and baby showers - the dedicated times that form the skeleton you hang the flesh and blood of your life on. Maybe the person you're closest to at work or your best friend or your partner is a little more organized than you are; they've written in lunch commitments two months in advance, every staff meeting at work, and notes to themselves to read for an evening or hike on a Saturday: they've lined out their lives on the pages of their planner. You're more willing than they are to make up most of it as you go along; you plan enough not to miss the essential commitments, but then keep yourself flexible so you can respond in a day - or sometimes in an hour, or a few minutes - to something that comes up. And you're comfortable with this much order combined with this much spontaneity. You don't forget important things, but you allow yourself the breathing room to say Yes or No depending upon what comes walking toward you. This doesn't make you a flake, or mean that you're irresponsible. In fact you are at your most efficient and productive, make your best contributions and find the greatest satisfaction precisely because you have just enough structure to know where you're going and enough freedom to take your time with work or friends, respond when something unexpected comes along, and really concentrate on what's in front of you without being distracted by some note in your calendar reminding you to run off to the stationary store because you'll run out of supplies by a week from Friday. People with more detailed plans might find you frustrating; when they can answer immediately Yes or No to an invitation weeks in advance just by checking their well-documented calendars, you have to say, "I'm not sure, let me get back to you". But frankly, that's the best response for you. You need the time, because you always want room to commit or not commit, depending upon what emerges as the next best use of your time and energy. This is in fact one of your great strengths; you know how to marshal your resources and allot time and energy in ways that keep you both productive and happy. Enough planning to know the general lay of the land, and enough flexibility to change directions or priorities: it works very well for you. So at the same time next year you'll buy your annual planner, find an hour sooner or later, and go through this ritual of ordering your life just enough to keep yourself on track but not so much that you give up the freedom to say Yes to something new that seems in the moment to be exactly what you want to do.

Introduction to Extraversion

Some days you want to hang out by yourself, not answer the phone, and make the world go away. The next day you e-mail everyone, schedule lunch with a friend, and try to find an evening gathering to take part in. It may be the phases of the moon, or something you ate; some days are just like that. In actuality, your desire to be with others or to be alone reflects something deep in your personality. Some of us are more comfortable by ourselves or with one or two friends, while others of us crave the crowd and can't stand it when the house is empty or the phone doesn't ring. The following paragraphs describe your fundamental desires about being with other people; whether you are generally an outgoing person or more reserved, if you seek adventures with others, if you tend toward assertiveness or kindness.

When it comes to Extraversion you are:

RESERVED

Words that describe you:

Thoughtful Modest Reflective Private Introverted Careful Restrained Meditative

A General Description of How You Interact with Others

You are generally a modest and private person. You are thoughtful and careful before making decisions and offering opinions. You most likely have a number of good friends and you greatly enjoy spending time with them. But even with your friends you tend not to be terribly outgoing; you open up, but slowly, and share yourself, but in a careful way. For you quality is much more important than quantity. When it comes to your social life you are more comfortable with deeper, well nurtured friendships than with having a social calendar that rivals that of a socialite. Whether at work or in social situations, you neither need nor particularly like the spotlight. In fact, it is often the case that your friends and colleagues think you deserve more credit than you take and more attention than you get. But that isn't really your style. Again, you don't crave flash and attention, it's quality and depth you treasure. This isn't to say that you don't want to be around people or that you aren't good in relationships and in social situations. In fact, you need the companionship of people, you just prefer quiet conversations with a friend or a small group to finding a new party to go to every week. Your social encounters balance out the side of you that likes your own company and having enough time to think and reflect. But you do find that life has a better rhythm for you when there is enough quiet time to deliberate on your own so that you are refreshed for your next encounter with friends and colleagues.

Negative Reactions Others May Have Toward You

You may occasionally run into problems with other people. Particularly those who may want more from you than you want to contribute, ones who may feel that by holding back you're not holding up your end of the social bargain. Others may guess, correctly, that there is a wealth in you that they would like to tap into, but may assume that you are unwilling to share. Their positive expectations will be confirmed on those occasions when you do open up. But your social style is one you have developed carefully and positively.

Positive Responses Others May Have Toward You

While some people can be frustrated by your thoughtful manner, others will appreciate you, and it won't take them long for them to realize that you are one of those who values depth and substance over flash and casualness. Even in private conversations there are times when you are more willing to listen than to open up. They will appreciate having more time to share their own thoughts and more of the spotlight than you care for. It is also likely that when you do choose to contribute they will listen because they've learned that you speak from a deep well of contemplation and reflection. It may take you some time, but if you're thoughtful about it, you will find a few friends who understand your reserved nature and will enjoy certain social situations in which you are fairly comfortable and in which people are equally as comfortable with you.

Extraversion: Adventure Introduction

At some parties there is the person who dances on the table with the lampshade on their head or leads the group sing-along to the sound-track from Saturday Night Fever or High Fidelity. At the same party is the person in the corner with a drink and a smile, in a quiet conversation that seems uninterrupted by the whirl in the dining room. Some people want to be the first one or the fastest one around whatever the next bend in the road is, while others are content to let the explorers come back and report before deciding whether to venture forth. Some people are "in the moment", ready to respond spontaneously to the most surprising suggestion, while others let the moment pass and stay put and act with deliberation and a certain sense of caution. The following paragraphs describe you in terms of your eagerness for adventure.

Adventure: Your Personalised Description

When the band's signature anthem starts near the end of the concert you're not the first one on your feet waving a candle or a lighter (you probably don't own a lighter!) and belting out the chorus. But once a few people rise, you're up and singing. When someone suggests the group try the Afghani restaurant and they pass the aushak and the sabsi, you aren't the first one to take a bite but, if no one who takes a taste groans, you'll put a bit on your fork and nibble. You're not the one trying to persuade others to try the next new thing, but if someone else stirs up the tribe you'll get in line. When it comes to new adventures, you can follow someone else's lead and find your way into whatever new experience awaits you, but you're not the leader of the pack or the life of the party. If you wind up on the dining room table dancing with a lampshade on our head it's because the whole group is up there, everyone having followed the lead of that charismatic fool who is always the first one to try it, whatever it is. It's not that you lack courage; you just don't have the need. You are as comfortable in a quiet gathering as at a bash, and would just as soon sit with one or two friends on the edge of the chaos, talking quietly while the weirdos bounce around the room. You have an unusual ability to enjoy whichever direction the group takes. This makes you great company. For your quieter friends who shun adventure, you are a welcome companion who, if they run out of much to say, will jump-start the next subject and carry the conversation until they're back in rhythm. One on one with a more venturesome friend, you're up for most of what they want to try; where they lead you'll follow and enjoy whatever they choose for the next new experience in the friendship. You may get out of sorts occasionally if the experience is either too wild or too tame. You just aren't interested in the most daring - to you, the most dangerous - ventures some of your friends will try. Nor do you like to sit, then sit some more, simply talking away a weekend; you want at least some action and you'll take the lead to break up what seems to your terminal boredom. But you're usually pretty gentle with your friends; you don't castigate the more venturesome nor humiliate the quiet ones. You just nudge yourself into a more satisfying position when the people you're with start to make you uncomfortable. You will probably struggle if you wind up with a partner who is on either extreme. Someone too venturesome will leave you in the lurch too often or, to turn it around, you'll leave them to their own weird choices. Someone too introverted and inactive will bore you to tears before mid-afternoon, and you'll wind up frustrated with one another more often than deeply gratified. So be wise and careful in choosing both a partner and your closest friends; you need these most special people to be more in the middle, where you are, when it comes to just how much adventure and how much stillness they desire.

Extraversion: Offering a Good Word Introduction

Some people have a way with words that makes other people feel affirmed, complimented, congratulated. Then there are those who seem to find a way to bite or bruise whomever they're in a conversation with, as if they've got an arsenal of words tucked somewhere out of sight, just waiting to be launched. The words we choose and the impact they have determine to a large extent the quality of our relationships. If words cheer the other person the relationships gains; if words hurt, the relationship suffers. So it is very important to pay attention to what we say and how we say it. And it is important to remember that there is a difference between intent and impact; you may intend to compliment or wound but the impact may be something else entirely. The following paragraphs describe the impact your words have on other people.

Good Word: Your Personalised Description

Sometimes a conversation is a verbal wrestling match for you. You have strong opinions, a ripe vocabulary and a desire to express what you truly feel and believe. At the same time you are a kind person who respects other people just because they're people, and even if you disagree with them you want to treat them with dignity. So your friend comes out with some opinion you disagree with and states it is as fact, not opinion. You can feel it: the strong "What nonsense!!" on the back of your tongue, your lungs ready to pump up the volume of your reaction. Or you could go with your kinder self. Lower the volume, find some benign word like "Interesting", and wait until the heat in you subsides before expressing what you think. You could go either way. In fact that's what happens. Sometimes your critic speaks, at other times the saint in you. Sometimes you turn up the volume, at other times you simply nod until something quieter slips out like a whisper. Sometimes what you deliver is a verbal punch that bruises the other person, at other times you find the good word to speak even if it isn't the whole of what you really want to say. Your response may depend upon the person in front of you. If it's someone you like or if you're in a particularly good place in the relationship, it's easier to be kind. If it's someone you don't care for or if your relationship is on edge, here comes the hammer. Maybe it depends upon the mood your in. If you slept well and the day is moving smoothly you dip into your dictionary of kindness. But if you got up on the wrong side of the bed or the wrong side of your moody self, there's that collection of verbal rocks you keep for days like this. You might want to learn something about yourself: can you figure out when you do and when you don't opt for the good word? Here's something that's true which you may or may not know. In relationships you care about, language matters. Not only the intent of what you say - "I was just trying to tell you my true feelings" - but also, and more importantly, the impact. Whatever your motives, if your words land like the stone that left David's sling shot and struck Goliath's forehead, the impact on your relationship may be lethal. Like all weapons, words can kill, even if that wasn't your intent. So given the choice - and words are always, yes always, chosen - you might want to expand your dictionary of kindness and ditch those verbal stones in some deep stream. You and your friends and your partner will all be safer in the long run.

Extraversion: Take Charge Introduction

In a group situation, if a decision needs to be made or a direction chosen, will you be the one to take charge or will you wait for someone else, and then follow? In a one-on-one situation, if each of you has a strong but contradictory belief, will you stand up for yourself or capitulate even if you still hold your belief? Or do you rock between these two responses, sometimes leading and sometimes following, sometimes defending yourself and sometimes giving in? Whether or not you take charge in groups or in one-on-one situations is something to know about yourself as you come to understand how you do in relationships. The following paragraphs describe your response when someone needs to take charge.

Take Charge: Your Personalised Description

As a leader you're something of an enigma. In some situations you will state your case, lay out your plan and lead the way. In other circumstances you shove your hands in your pockets, press your lips together and wait for someone else to say, "Let's go this way". In some situations you stand up for yourself even against the strong or manipulative voices of people in charge. In other circumstances you appear to let people shove you around as if you have too little self-respect or just don't care enough to fight for what you believe in and who you are. Sometimes a strong leader, sometimes a passive follower. You are an enigma as a leader. Why the inconsistency? Perhaps it depends upon the people you're with. If there's a particularly strong leader in the crowd you slide toward the margin and let them take over. You're not someone to challenge someone bent on leading. But if the person or group you're with has no other clear leader you'll step up, make the call and lead the way. Or maybe it depends upon the circumstance. If the decision to take charge is about something you're very good at, no problem: you voice your opinion with confidence, win the debate with less convincing points of view and lead the way. Maybe the different styles arise not because of the people you're with or the problem you're dealing with but from some uncertainty inside you. On your best days your anxiety is at rest; you can assert yourself with confidence and trust your opinions and your decisions. On other days, when the worry monster rattles its chains in the basement, you're reluctant to take charge for fear that you'll walk in the wrong direction or lead the group into a ditch on the side of the road. This inconsistency may be confusing to your friends and your partner. Since you take leadership on occasion they may identify you as someone whom they can trust to take charge. On those good days you come through for them. But on days when you're passive and waiting for someone else to lead they wonder where you've gone. With your closest friends and especially with your partner it will be important to talk through what you know about yourself as a leader. If you can figure out your own inconsistency and share with them what you discover, both you and they will avoid the worst of the frustrations that come when you rotate between being out front and waiting for someone else to lead.