A lot has been written about the personality of Apple founder and visionary Steve Jobs since his death. Speaking in terms of iPersonic personality types Steve Jobs was a perfect example of a Groundbreaking Thinker. The corresponding description of this personality type really hits the nail on the head:

(... ) You really bubble over with energy and like to take centre stage. You love variety both professionally and privately. You tackle changes consistently with your optimism and firm belief in your own abilities; you are always on the look-out for improvement possibilities. (...) Hierarchies, rules and regulations arouse your opposition and you love outsmarting the system. It can happen that some people feel somewhat duped by your flexible, spontaneous nature. (...)

(You can read the complete description of the Groundbreaking Thinker here.)

Definitely Steve Jobs! And what about you? Are you a Steve Jobs personality? Find out by taking our free personality test! Continue reading ...

Tags: personality, Steve Jobs, Groundbreaking Thinker, Personality test

If you have already read my past contributions on the subject introversion, you already know that introverts have a more difficult life in our, by extroverts dominated society. In addition to the increased risk to their physical and psychological health (as for instance disorders like depression, affective disorders, burnout and others) they are also less equipped to deal with stress than extroverts: They handle stress more poorly and generally are less satisfied with their life than extroverts. Consequently introverts are more easily attracted to drugs, addictive substances or prescription drug abuse and apparently also choose suicide in hopeless life situations more frequently than extroverts. Continue reading ...

Tags: introversion, World Introvert Day, personality

Our free personality test is extrapolated from a typology which was originally developed by the psychoanalyst Carl Gustaf Jung and later differentiated by Isabel Meyers and Katherine Briggs. This typology is based on different temperaments and attitudes respectively that are widely held to be hereditary. They take influence on our perceptions, thought process, feelings and behavior. This typology is based on four opposite pairs of personality dimensions. These are: Continue reading ...

Tags: iPersonic, personality, Personality test, Typology

Since the end of the 90s a new branch of the science, also known as Positive Psychology has been dealing with the essentials for happiness. In order to help you find out which happiness potentials are maybe lying idle with you, I have summarized the 40 most important insights on the subject “happiness” in an abbreviated format in the following “checklist”. Continue reading ...

Tags: happiness, Well-being, problems, gratitude, career, intuition, personality

As in all other areas of your life, your personality plays a decisive role in the things you enjoy or don’t enjoy. It plays a role in why you are more successful in a particular area with less effort and why some areas might be more difficult for you and require more effort. Your personality affects how you affect others and how you see them. In addition to your personal partnership, your profession should ideally be the second sustaining mainstay in your life. Continue reading ...

Tags: career, profiling, personality, job satisfaction

Today a few words about our color system and the principle behind it. You may have already asked yourself: "Why do they claim that similar colors stand for certain personality types that are a good match and what is this all about?"

In the vernacular we find two totally contradictory proverbs on the subject of attraction, love and friendship. All of us are familiar with: “Birds of a feather flock together” and the other one: “Opposites attract.” When one scientifically deals with the question why we feel more comfortable in the company of one person but not of another, you find that there is a lot of truth in the vernacular. Research tells us that to a point both principles have their justification.

In general, we instinctively prefer the company of people who are similar to ourselves regarding the important aspects of our personality, our origin and convictions. That stands to reason. In one respect this similarity makes dealing with them easier, communication works more smoothly, and all kinds of conflicts don’t even make their appearance because one agrees in the important matters anyway. This is obviously a lot more agreeable than endless discussions about every triviality in order to finally reach a compromise. Beyond that, we appreciate people who validate our view of the world rather than those seeing everything differently. This conformity is assuring and gives us self-confidence. Research even has a term for this phenomenon, i.e. choosing a partner: Homogeny. Multiple studies in a variety of scientific categories substantiate this tendency to choose someone similar. Continue reading ...

Tags: personality

Eight of our sixteen personality types in the third dimension prefer intuition to sensing: All Thinkers (Analytical, Groundbreaking, Independent and Dynamic) and all Idealists (Spontaneous, Engaged, Dreamy and Harmony-seeking). However, what does that actually mean for their every day life?

Neuroscientists have known this for a long time: Our consciousness is not even close to being able to handle all the information that continuously floods it. Consequently, it focuses on the immediate and important and continuously blocks the majority of external stimuli out. Just now, as you read this, your subconscious receives all kinds of signals which your consciousness deliberately ignores because otherwise you would not be able to concentrate on the text: information about your physical posture (or were you even aware up to now which parts of your body were touching the chair and which were touching the floor? how warm or how cold your hands are right now? or if a little tension in your neck is coming on?), a number of environmental information (brightness, background noises, temperature, the presence of a colleague sitting on the neighboring table…) and countless more things. All these informational units end up in your subconscious and with incredible speed are processed, evaluated, sorted and filtered. They are usually only transferred into the foreground – i.e. your consciousness – when they become urgent (when your chair collapses under you, for instance!). Continue reading ...

Tags: personality, intuition

As you know, our 16 Personality Types are distinguished by totally different preferences, dislikes and naturally also different strengths (and development potential, but that is not our subject today). For instance, the “Thinkers” are outstanding analyzers who can handle abstract and complex subjects especially well and for whom even the most complicated problem solutions are a breeze. The “Idealists” usually possess a special creativity and a sparkling charisma that frequently make them into gifted artists and fascinating conversationalists. One can only envy the “Doers” for their inexhaustible energy and drive just as for their uncomplicated pragmatism that stands them in good stead during tumultuous times. And nobody has as much staying power and determination where his/her objectives are concerned as the “Realists” who are also blessed with a sound common sense. (You can determine your professional strengths in our free career test).

These are only some examples – the list can obviously be increased at will and gets more differentiated when not just the four primary groups but also each type is considered individually. In every day life we always tend to concentrate on our weaknesses and mistakes. We all too easily loose sight of our strengths. That is how we remember it from our childhood (unless you were really fortunate with your parents, of course!) and that is how we often deal with our partners, as well (or have you praised yours for something he or she has done yet today?). Of course, if one wants to change something or make sure not to repeat a mistake, it sometimes makes sense to deal with one’s weaknesses. On the other hand those who are constantly wearing deficit-oriented spectacles are going to end up having a problem with their self-esteem and sooner or later will lack a healthy self-confidence. And after all, those are important requirements for a happy life. Continue reading ...

Tags: personality, Self development