Finding Your Flow: Leveraging Your Dominant Personality Trait – Everyday Fulfillment
No Vacation Required
We all have a natural strength so built into our wiring that we rarely even notice we are using it. It is the default mode that allows us to swim downstream with the current at our backs, experiencing a sense of pure flow. But because it comes so naturally, we often take it for granted—or assume everyone else sees the world exactly the same way we do.
This week, we are kicking off a new four-part series by diving deep into your dominant personality trait. We are exploring what it feels like to be "in the pocket" of your greatest strength, how to recognize when you are operating out of alignment, and why your dominant trait is the ultimate key to building a life you don't need a vacation from.
Onward and Inward,
COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE
❓What is a dominant personality trait? Your dominant trait is your core strength and default mode. It is the first personality function to develop in childhood and becomes so natural by adulthood that you often don't even realize you are using it.
❓How do I know if I am operating in my dominant trait? When you are using your dominant trait, it feels like "swimming downstream." It is characterized by a sense of flow, ease, and a lack of mental blocks. If everything feels like a struggle, you may be operating out of one of your lesser-developed traits.
❓What is a personality "stack"? Your personality stack refers to the hierarchy of your four core cognitive functions: Dominant (your greatest strength), Auxiliary (your supporting strength), Tertiary (a lesser-used trait), and Inferior (your weakest area).
❓Can my dominant trait actually work against me? Yes. If you are unaware of your dominant trait, you can become "clumsy" with it—like an immature superhero who doesn't know how to control their powers. You might assume everyone sees the world exactly as you do, which can lead to frustration and miscommunication.
❓Should I focus on fixing my weaknesses or leaning into my strengths? You should always lean into your strengths. Rather than trying to force your weaknesses to become strong, focus on making your natural strengths even stronger, and use them to compensate for the areas where you are less naturally gifted.
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Mind Share: We love short books
(02:04) Going deeper into your personality "stack"
(03:05) Understanding your dominant trait: The effortless flow state
(06:45) The four positions: Dominant, Auxiliary, Tertiary, and Inferior
(09:42) What it feels like to swim downstream with your natural strength
(12:58) The "Immature Superhero" trope: Why your strength can work against you
(17:17) How introversion and extroversion supercharge your dominant trait
(19:23) Mailbag: Is it better to focus on my weaknesses or lean into my strengths?
SUPPORT NO VACATION REQUIRED
If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube! It is the best way to help our message reach more people.
✅ Never miss an episode by hitting the follow button on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts
✅ Read The No Vacation Required Book
✅ Follow us on Instagram
✅ Talk To Us
TRANSCRIPT
Kent (00:01)
We all have a default personality mode, a natural strength so built in that we rarely even notice we're using it. Today we're unpacking our dominant personality trait and exploring how to harness its effortless flow.
Caanan (00:17)
Kent, what is on your mind?
Kent (00:21)
I'm thinking of books and I'm thinking I've possibly shared this one before, but I don't care. That's how important this is to me.
Caanan (00:32)
I'm at the edge of my seat.
Kent (00:33)
⁓
Kent (00:33)
I am very pro shorter books. I've read so many good short books. We've read so many good shorter books. ⁓ Yeah. You know a great book can be accomplished in 200 pages or less, and I guess more realistically, 300 pages or less. So I just want to say I'm thinking a lot about books over 300 pages, and they need to be really, really, really good ⁓ to be ⁓
Kent (00:59)
over three hundred pages and it's so wild to read a book that's like five hundred and fifty pages and it's just this meandering mediocre thing and I think that's what turns people off from reading. We need more good short books.
Caanan (01:15)
Yeah, we do. We read a lot of books ⁓ and you know what's interesting that you bring this up. We've been reading some classics, like we just finished of Mice and Men, which we had both read in high school or college. it's like a hundred and twenty-six pages. And it's a great American novel. It's brilliant. Hundred and twenty six pages. Yeah. Like so efficient. But I think a lot of books now are being written in fact to be optioned
Caanan (01:43)
four T V series. So I have a feeling they kind of meander because they're trying to fill up a lot of space.
Kent (01:50)
Yep. Make a series out of it.
Caanan (01:52)
So
Caanan (01:53)
I'm with you. Short books. We're all about short books.
Kent (02:03)
Last month we talked about personality ⁓ in general, and we had a lot of interest in that series, which I'm very excited about because we're ⁓ big believers that the more you know yourself, the more you can ⁓ live a fulfilled what we call no vacation required ⁓ life. ⁓ And people were so interested in those four process pairings we talked about:
Kent (02:29)
T and F, ⁓ S snd N, ⁓
Kent (02:34)
J and P and of course I and E. So we decided that we were gonna do another four-pack going deeper into what this means. Now that we've discussed these four process pairings, how does it come together in personality? And as we said in the intro, you've got one
Kent (02:59)
what we call default personality mode. It is it's your core strength. And it's pretty amazing how dominant that core strength is. And in fact it's so dominant that you don't even know you're using it a lot of the time. And I think of my dominant strength, which is intuition
Kent (03:26)
And it's very strange because if I'm in the zone and just kind of doing doing life at its best and not stressed out, I can very easily tap into it i in a way, as we said, where I don't even know it. And
Kent (03:50)
What's interesting is the only time this really comes to mind ⁓ is when I'm not using intuition and I can feel ⁓ an unnatural progression in how I'm ⁓ approaching something. ⁓ If I'm getting too thinky about it or too particular about ⁓ a topic, ⁓ but I can be completely in flow
Kent (04:15)
when I'm relying on ⁓ intuition. And it's very strange to think of that knowingness. Well, you see this, Caanan in action, because we're together all the time and ⁓ working together and experiencing things together. ⁓ And ⁓ it's particularly interesting to think about the experience of people witnessing me ⁓
Kent (04:42)
in my dominant strength intuition there's just a flow and a knowingness
Caanan (04:50)
Yeah.
Kent (04:51)
where people will be like how did you know that that's exactly right that's exactly what I should do what's your experience well seeing this
Caanan (04:58)
Yeah. ⁓ The
Caanan (05:02)
term is a little cheugy but we call it ⁓ a superpower because it can feel like that, especially to other people witnessing you ⁓ really ⁓ sitting into your dominant ⁓ personality trait.
Caanan (05:17)
For me, experiencing that in you, it feels like you have this natural ability to see around corners or to see multiple potentialities at once in a way that feels very natural and you'll you'll say, well, we should consider X and such because Y, Z and one and two could happen.
Caanan (05:47)
And it will feel to me like how is it possible that you can even know that? But more to your question, Kent, how do you do that so fast? Like I might get to some of that myself.
Caanan (06:04)
But it would take me a lot of time, a lot of effort to get there in a way that for you, because you are so settled into your dominant trait and so comfortable in that, it really does feel like just second nature.
Kent (06:23)
In everything we've done, in our personal lives and as sought after business and career development consultants, we've learned one consistent thing. Most people just don't know themselves. NoVacationRequired.com is where we talk about how you too can build a life that you don't need a break from and how it all starts with knowing yourself. There you'll find all of our podcast episodes, information on services, and the scoop on us. And to really raise the bar, we model this as a couple.
Kent (06:52)
To show that a relationship doesn't have to be a compromise or a counterproductive union. When two people are each doing their own work, the heightened connection becomes a shortcut to building a no vacation required life.
Kent (07:07)
Okay, so the dominant personality position ⁓ we really can't overemphasize how predominant this is in people. It is ⁓ so predominant that the auxiliary and tertiary and inferior that we're gonna talk about in subsequent weeks can be much, much lower ⁓
Kent (07:32)
In power and prevalence. Like the gap between position one dominant ⁓ and position two auxiliary ⁓ in a lot of people ⁓ can be ⁓ really, really big. And this is another kind of advertisement for getting to know yourself and getting to know your personality because simply by knowing your personality, knowing your stack, as Caanan and I call this, your stack, dominant, auxiliary, tertiary, inferior, ⁓ you ⁓
Kent (08:00)
Already have this edge where then you're aware of how your personality works and you want to have these four positions in sync. So just to go ⁓ way into the weeds, ⁓ if you haven't listened to the last four-pack on personality, please do. ⁓ But just a moment of what all that was for the I and the E introversion ⁓
Kent (08:27)
and extraversion ⁓ and the J and the P, judging and perceiving, those two pairs of the four ⁓ simply determine
Kent (08:37)
the positioning and how your core personality qualities are used. Right. The other two pairings, sensing and intuition and thinking and feeling, those four make up your stack, as we call it, your personality order.
Kent (09:02)
One is dominant, one is auxiliary, one is tertiary, one is inferior. And this is why in the last pack of podcasts, we talked a lot about how there's all these misconceptions about personality because we all have degrees of all of these things, particularly the sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling. We are not all one thing. But I want to say that the
Kent (09:31)
Dominant function is the function that unfolds first in your growth and development and in most people it begins to develop in you know early childhood and by teen years and certainly by early adulthood it's
Kent (09:54)
Quite well developed. It's as natural as natural ⁓ gets. people wonder a lot about what this position feels like. ⁓ would you say, Caanan it's accurate to talk about it? Like it's the ⁓ it's truly like swimming downstream, as I as we discussed about in the last segment. Like when I'm in that zone with my dominant, ⁓ with my intuition ⁓
Kent (10:23)
and I don't have things f fettering it, it feels completely natural.
Caanan (10:31)
Yeah, I think swimming downstream with a strong current at your back is a good way of putting it because it does feel very flow state. In fact, it's kind of funny to think about how it feels because I would say when you're really in your dominant
Caanan (10:52)
without stress, because that can really complicate things.
Caanan (10:57)
it may actually not feel like anything at all because it is such a natural state. Great
Kent (11:02)
Yeah, but two
Caanan (11:03)
way to Yeah. So you may not even recognize that. It's sort of the absence of turbulence or the absence of blocks, which it's sort of a hard thing to recognize until you don't have it. And then you're like, God, that why is this so hard for me?
Kent (11:20)
Yes.
Kent (11:20)
It's it's weird to also talk about that this series in the way we are one week dominant. Next week we'll talk auxiliary, then tertiary, then inferior. Because in a in a way we need to be talking about all of these things together because the more you know about particularly your tertiary and inferior, the more sense your dominant makes.
Kent (11:45)
it's kind of you know, you you know where you're least successful, your tertiary and inferior traits. So it's a good reminder or a good way to know how to get back where you're more successful, predominantly in your dominant and in your auxiliary.
Caanan (12:05)
Yeah,
Caanan (12:05)
and would you say, because we're always talking about, you know, extolling the virtues of knowing yourself and your personality, it's essentially the whole point of this podcast. Would you say, Kent, that if you have not experienced that sense of pure flow, that freedom, that complete lack of of blockades in your in your day, in in the way you move through the world?
Caanan (12:34)
that that would be a good indicator that you are not operating in type.
Caanan (12:41)
Like that's a good way to look at your life and say, okay, have I experienced that? If I haven't, I need to figure out my type and I need to that I'm likely not operating in type.
Kent (12:54)
Yeah, or you're you're so stressed out and out of whack that you're operating from one of your lesser dominant personality characteristics.
Caanan (13:06)
Thanks for listening. We'd be honored if you'd subscribe, like, and share. It means the world to us.
Kent (13:14)
I just read the funniest thing on on this. yeah, we're we're reading funny things on personality 'cause we're personality geeks. But it's it's funny, like if your dominant trait is well oiled
Kent (13:32)
It is hard for you to see that the world
Kent (13:39)
doesn't see everything in the same way you see it. yeah. So you can kind of it's that thing where you you can kind of and I guess how cool you are, how much cooth you bring shows how much like grace you bring, and hopefully you bring a lot of grace, but you can have this idea like, how do
Kent (14:00)
How does this person see the world this way? You just have such a certainty when you're in your pocket. And something we're gonna get into in yet another series is you want you want these things in
Kent (14:22)
Balance. You want this knowledge that I'm talking about. You want to be able to say, like, when I'm in my ⁓ dominant intuitive mode, ⁓ before I matured into knowing my personality and how to put it forth ⁓ and how to use it to serve me. ⁓ And of course, Caanan you had the same experience, ⁓ you can be a little ⁓
Kent (14:48)
Clumsy with it. But as you know your personality and you want to keep it in balance, of course, always leading with your dominant personality strength. you know, for instance, when you're playing your dominant too much, because you don't want to be a know-it-all ⁓ or a bully. ⁓ so one of the one of the big things you want to talk about is this isn't just about.
Kent (15:11)
We want you to know your dominant personality ⁓ characteristic. ⁓ It's about what happens after that, what it looks like when you have that knowledge. And then you're using it ⁓ to your greatest benefit. I know Caanan you wanted to say some stuff about what that looks like in balance.
Caanan (15:28)
Well, I actually think of what you're saying is a the little bit of a trope here with like a a immature superhero who has a skill but doesn't know how to harness it. And so maybe you have the ability to set things on fire and as a teenager you're just getting angry and setting lots of things on fire accidentally and it's like yeah, you have a superpower, but you're accidentally setting things on fire. It's no good.
Caanan (15:58)
When you know what your dominant strength is, when you know you can set things on fire and how to do that with with focus and intentionality, you can really put that to good use. So it it really is the same, as silly as that metaphor is, it's the same with your dominant personality strength. You can go your whole life without knowing what it is.
Caanan (16:28)
And it can serve you in a lot of ways, but it can also kind of work against you if you're not aware of what's happening. To your point, Kent, you can be so comfortable in your own dominant personality strength that you can think the entire world sees everything in that exact same way and operates in the same way that you do. Yeah. Because you can't get out of your own head. But when you know your personality strengths
Caanan (16:56)
When you know your dominant strength, you can really harness it and you can bring balance to it. you can really have that intentionality that makes it work for you in the most effective way possible and allows you to show up in different situations in really effective, embodied, intentional ways. And then it is it is a bona fide superpower.
Kent (17:21)
Yeah, wanna say too before we close out this segment, listening to you made me realize we skipped an important component. Okay.
Caanan (17:34)
We're always going to do that!
Caanan (17:35)
⁓
Kent (17:37)
The beauty
Kent (17:37)
about your dominant strength ⁓ is ⁓ it's also informed ⁓ by that EI pairing extroverted ⁓ or introverted which do you prefer ⁓ extroversion or introversion so your dominant strength ⁓ is of course going to live in the space ⁓ of either extroversion ⁓
Kent (17:59)
Or introversion, whichever one of those is your preference. So ⁓ yeah, Caanan not only do you have this ⁓ great dominant strength that you could get very clumsy with and be immature with, ⁓ it is backed by your preference ⁓ for either introversion ⁓ or extroversion. So it can literally ⁓ become, as we say these days, your whole personality. ⁓ Cause there's so much ⁓ power ⁓ there because it's ⁓
Kent (18:29)
It's sitting in your extroversion or your introversion, which gives it that ⁓ extra ⁓ boost, importance and meaning. Yeah. But also the ability for you to get ⁓ and we talk a lot about this ⁓ with our ⁓ our YouFinder product ⁓ to get
Kent (18:49)
⁓ so into your own yeah primary strength ⁓ that ⁓ it actually starts to work against you and and in stress, ⁓ a first level stress indicator, ⁓ and we really get into this with our our YouFinder product, ⁓ you can become so reliant on your dominant strength ⁓ that ⁓ you kind of can become unbearable.
Kent (19:24)
Okay, I've got something from the mailbag, something that came in during our last
Caanan (19:29)
Four pack.
Kent (19:31)
Yep, very
Kent (19:32)
common question that we get and this question feels so two thousands, so like strength finder.
Caanan (19:38)
my
Caanan (19:39)
gosh, she just made me think of the Black Eyed Peas This is so two thousand and late. ⁓
Kent (19:45)
but it's a great question. Is it better to focus on my weaknesses or just to lean into my strengths?
Caanan (19:51)
that is so two thousand and late.
Kent (19:53)
Go Caanan. I know you love you have a big answer to this question.
Caanan (19:59)
Yeah.
Caanan (19:59)
We have a very specific clear take on this. ⁓ And it is ⁓ that you should always lean into your strengths. focus on your strengths. ⁓ Focus on what you are naturally good at ⁓ and allow that to lift you up. So instead of like trying to make your weaknesses stronger, make your strengths stronger and allow that to compensate
Caanan (20:27)
for the areas where you have some weakness. I think it's it really is simple, isn't it?
Kent (20:32)
we
Kent (20:32)
tell clients only view your weaknesses through the lens of your strengths. Only attempt to quote improve your weaknesses via your strengths. Because that's the only way and the best way to do it.