Alyssa McDowell

Their performance is the ultimate yardstick. No matter how hard you try, no matter how worthy your intentions, if you reached your goal but did not outperform your peers, the achievement feels hollow

If you can compare, you can compete, and if you can compete, you can win

You like other competitors because they invigorate you

Although you are gracious to your fellow competitors and even stoic in defeat, you don’t compete for the fun of competing

You compete to win

You are a private person

Thus, you are a fairly serious person who approaches life with a certain reserve.

like to plan ahead so as to anticipate what might go wrong.

You select your friends cautiously and keep your own counsel when the conversation turns to personal matters

You are careful not to give too much praise and recognition, lest it be misconstrued. If some people don’t like you because you are not as effusive as others, then so be it

You want to include people and make them feel part of the group

You want to expand the group so that as many people as possible can benefit from its support

You hate the sight of someone on the outside looking in. You want to draw them in so that they can feel the warmth of the group

You are an instinctively accepting person

Your accepting nature does not necessarily rest on a belief that each of us is different and that one should respect these differences. Rather, it rests on your conviction that fundamentally we are all the same. We are all equally important.

You love to solve problems

You enjoy the challenge of analyzing the symptoms, identifying what is wrong, and finding the solution

Your exact preferences are determined by your other themes and experiences

You may seek out specific kinds of problems that you have met many times before and that you are confident you can fix

But what is certain is that you enjoy bringing things back to life

You are impatient with generalizations or “types” because you don’t want to obscure what is special and distinct about each person

You instinctively observe each person’s style, each person’s motivation, how each thinks, and how each builds relationships

you know that one person prefers praise in public and another detests it, and why you tailor your teaching style to accommodate one person’s need to be shown and another’s desire to “figure it out as I go.”

Because you are such a keen observer of other people’s strengths, you can draw out the best in each person

you know instinctively that the secret to great teams is casting by individual strengths so that everyone can do a lot of what they do well.