I am amazed every time I turn around there seems to be a new way to label humankind. I’m a high I, secondary D according to DISC. My MBTI says I’m a ENFP which means I like to talk, intuit, feel, and perceive stuff. My explanatory style is mildly pessismistic but my hope score is thru the roof. Not sure what that one means. I love my strengthsfinder results. They have labeled me as an activator, command, learner, woo, and realator. Of course that’s only version 1.0. When I recently took the version 2.0 seems my wiring disconnected woo, relator and command and quickly rewired strategic, maximizer, and belief. My IQ test is 140 which is much better than my college label of 3.0. Simon Baron-Cohen has a great test to label your right/left brainedness. Turns out I’m off the chart empathetic but my systems thinking leaves much to be desired. I could go on. I’ll stop.
I believe, we love to label our teams, our children, our parents,our neighbors, and ourselves because it’s so much easier than getting to know who they really are and who we really are! We love to rush to judge and getting all these labels just makes the job easier.
I don’t come with a simple label and most likely you don’t either. I’m done trying to label my family, friends, and clients. My son, Jordan, has taught me the futility of the effort. He cannot be boxed in.
Forget your labels. Do you know who you are? Have you spent time alone reflecting, thinking, and writing or are you too busy running? Until you know who you are it doesn’t make much sense adding all these taglines. Slow down and reflect.
Take the BUILT TO LEAD challenge and write out your CORE. Talk to your truth tellers and coach and get help illuminating your blindspots. Then, as you take your strengthsfinders label and countless other good ones, you’ll have a strong internal matrix, your CORE, to run ’em through.
Here’s my labeling of me… I’m a Christian sinner, crazy facilitator, coach, liberal republican/conservative democrat, lunatic/independent, loyal and loving husband, lousy romantic, impatient/loving father, thinker, feeler, silly, laid back and flat out, cyclist and occasional golfer, healthy eater who also loves ice cream, reader, writer, tree hugger who loves porsches, inconsistently considerate if I like you, high on empathy and low on execution, clear, concise, and direct unless you’re 11, guy who can find the melody line and miss a million little details, guy who works in jeans and loves to wake up dead people. I’m weird and I care, but not that much. I could go on. I’ll stop.
How do you label you?
BUILT TO LEAD 